


We Get to Have it All

by NoseyPepper



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25579669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoseyPepper/pseuds/NoseyPepper
Summary: Some insight into the events following Tony and Ziva's reunion in Paris, and into the way they could have been feeling.
Relationships: Ziva David & Anthony DiNozzo
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

The depths of his mind start to stir as first light seeps past the curtains. His mouth and nose feel a little dry from the fan, but his mind and body feel rested for the first time in six years. His body has been pushed and pulled and commanded in so many ways for so long. When he felt life finally start to settle, it was ripped out from under him. He’d never felt hope the way he had that year, the year they were supposed to have it all.  
He wasn’t expecting the burden and heaviness of that last night to burrow into his heart and fester. But, it did. In many ways, he felt like the last breath he’d ever take escaped his lungs the night they told him she was gone. And, then, he was a father and a partner and an officer and there were no finite boundaries. He just knew he needed to breathe any breath left in him into his new life, into the life they created together.  
He wasn’t expecting to carry the pain of seeing her in Cairo and not being able to tell anyone she was okay. He knew “okay” was relative. She really wasn’t okay, but she was alive. He still sees her grit and grime and sweat covered face when he closes his eyes sometimes. He still sees the way her knees gave in as she collapsed, sobs wracking her shoulders, as she held Tali against her chest. He can still smell the years of battle on her skin and taste the way she tasted when it was time for him and Tali to return home.  
He shakes himself of those thoughts and those feelings, though, because her snores are filling their bedroom and he sighs in contentment. He shifts onto his side and rests his head on his hand, taking in the gentle up and down of her back. Her hair is still damp from their shower and the fan blows goosebumps across the skin of her shoulders. He’s struggling between lifting the blankets to her shoulders and flitting his fingers across the bared skin. He settles for keeping her warm and lifts the covers to create a cocoon around them, his arm sliding around her stomach. He clasps their fingers and pulls her close, and he relishes in the way she settles into him.  
It's such a different feeling than her usual defensive, tense reactions to being touched in her sleep. He wants more than anything for her to feel safe with him. He thinks that she deserves that more than anything in this world: to feel safe and to feel worthy of the love he has for her. He smiles into her slightly damp hair as she sighs and lifts their clasped hands to rest against her sternum. There’s a steady thump of her heart that serves as a reminder that she’s really okay now. The tiny pendant Tali picked out for her to wear is chilly against his fingers, but he doesn’t mind. He’s been waiting for this moment since the last time he held her in Cairo.  
This, he thinks to himself, is so entirely different than that time, though. Their encounter had been as hot and rushed and sticky as the environment. There was so much confusion and turmoil that he doesn’t think either one of them ever processed. There’s still a lot they need to process together, but, this time, her breathing is calm and the fluttering of her eyelids is gentle. He wants to relish in these differences and make sure that they’re a forever thing.  
He feels himself dozing, his thoughts blurring, when he feels the sudden stroking of her fingers and he jumps back out of the grip of sleep.  
“What has you awake at this time of morning, Tony?” Her voice is sleep ridden and slurred, but he can tell she’s smirking.  
His first instinct is to respond with something regarding her lack of clothing, or the feel of her skin, or the way she looks as the sheet slips back down her shoulders; but he has spent too long without her to hide from her. He knows that he doesn’t need to hide, not from her.  
“You’re really home,” he takes in the way his whisper against her ear makes her shudder.  
“I am, Ahuvi,” the way her language rolls off her tongue gently and full of content comforts him more than he ever thought it would. “Levasof.”  
“Finally,” he laughs at the way she turns to look at him, eyebrow cocked.  
“You have been studious, I see?”  
“I can’t people watch with Tali or share special daddy-daughter secrets in English, can I?”  
He feels the trimmer start in her fingers before he hears her sniffle and it doesn’t take much more for him to murmur softly and turn her, burying her into his chest. Her chin trembles as her fingers splay against the soft hair she leans against. He brushes the curls from her eyes and cradles her head the way she likes it to be held, the way only he knows how to.  
She takes in a shuddering breath and finds her words, “I made Adam swear to me that he would make sure you were the only person to have any contact with Tali during their journey to you. When he contacted me to tell me that Orli personally put her in your arms, I knew she would never be in danger again.”  
He doesn’t have the words so he just brushes his thumb across the curve of her cheek. He eases the tense furrow of her eyebrows with a wet kiss. Her nose flares and sniffles under his lips when he trails the kiss there, and then he feels her swallow. He doesn’t say anything; he just waits for her to find the words that have needed to be said for so long.  
“Adam showed me pictures of you with her at the park. He said once she saw you there were no more tears. I could not keep those pictures and it hurt so badly to give them back,” Tony nods and watches as a tear tickles her top lip, wiping it with the pad of his thumb.  
He’s swallowing back his own tears as he finds the right words, “We get to have those moments together now. We get to be a family, the three of us. You’ll get to see her run and play and swing. You won’t have to look at her through pictures anymore. You’re home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a continuation of their reunion, and also part of the challenge Boomerbird10 challenged us to. There are flashbacks to ToC and it takes place post-season 17.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a 1k-words-or less challenge to write a Truth or Consequences fic including the line "You could have died."

It’s late when their tears are no longer sad, when they’re both a little loopy and teary and content with knowing that their family isn’t going anywhere. The lazy circles she’s been tracing against his chest are starting to become lines before she jerks back to consciousness. He laughs gently when she tries to continue her caresses, but she’s clearly lost her battle. The smile that appears shyly when he lifts her hand to his lips reminds him of the one she gave him on the day they brought her home from Somalia.  
He’s happy to admit to himself that this night is a lot different than that day. Tonight, the air between them is all encompassing; it’s everything they’ve been waiting for all these years. That day, the air was grimy and heavy. He remembers watching her watch the straps hanging from the overheads sway. He remembers watching the clouds in her eyes roll in. Now, in the midst of his reminiscence, he can indulge in the love he felt for her. He couldn’t in those moments, partly because he wasn’t even aware the extent of his love for her. Now, though, he allows himself to remember the softness of those moments on the plane.  
 _“When you said, ‘I guess I couldn’t live without you,’ was that the truth serum’s doing?”_  
Tony remembers how heavy and tired her voice was and how badly she was struggled to make sense of the storms brewing in her mind; he could see the struggle loud and clear. They’ve never been good at hiding from each other.  
Right now, with her face half pressed into his neck, her smile is lazy and sleep-drunk. The circumstances now are vastly different than the ones they faced on that plane, but her smile is similar; and that makes him love her even more. Even in the darkest moments of her life, she still tried to comfort him. He remembers the way she tried to apply pressure to a gash on her cheek, but the pain was too much.  
He can’t help but to brush his thumb across her cheek now and think about the way she smiled at him; a sort of secret smile meant for just him that they hadn’t deciphered the meaning of yet. She had been in extraordinary pain in all senses and she still let him in.  
He chuckles quietly at the response he gave her, _“at this point, the extent of the serum’s hold on me is questionable.”_  
He remembers the tear that escaped her eye at this. He remembers the way she exhaled, shuddering and grunting as sudden intake of the following breath hurt her worn body.  
He finds himself smiling back at her now. He’s sure she doesn’t even know he’s smiling at her because she’s that close to sleep, but that doesn’t keep him from relishing longer in that moment.  
He’s never understood why people think she’s cold. She’s the warmest person he knows. It was her who brought warmth into their somber ride on that plane as she slid her hand close to his and brushed her pinky finger against his.  
His eyelids are drooping when the sudden feeling of her fingers tickling the stubble on his face jolts him awake. She giggles slightly at the way he snorts and places his hand over hers.  
“We are not going to get any sleep tonight, are we, Ahuvi?” Her term of endearment has his heart fluttering.  
“I’m just thinking about when we brought you home from Somalia,” he starts gently but the look in her eyes is open and welcoming.  
“What has you thinking about that?” Her accent is thick and it only has him smiling more. She quirks an eyebrow at what she knows is a complex mix of thoughts and emotions going on in his head.  
“I don’t like thinking about how you could have died. I think about the day we brought you home a lot, and those thoughts used to hurt. But when I see you smile it reminds me of the way you smiled at me that day. I think that’s when I realized that I love you,” his voice cracks a little bit and she cuddles closer.  
“I wish I could say that I have not almost died as many times as I have, but do you know what the common denominator is in all of this?” He feels her smooth out the furrow that forms between his eyebrows.  
“What’s that?”  
“You have never failed me, even when I thought you had. From that moment you asked me what you could do for me and I told you, ‘nothing,’ until this very moment, you have not wavered. You have found me time and time again. You found me even when I did not want to be found,” her words rattle a little in his tired brain a little before they stick.  
He brushes a stray curl from her eyes and takes in the way she’s still smiling their smile, “I’ll never stop finding you.”  
“Milim lo yekholot letaer et ha’ahava sheli elekha,” they’re both so tired that he’s not fast enough to translate for himself and she’s too tired to slow down.  
What starts as a chuckle and an attempt to tell her that she might have to help him out turns into a rumbling laugh that she has to stifle with a kiss. She’s rolling in laughter, too, at this point.  
She barks out a laugh into his lips when he grips her hips and rolls her on top of him, “Tony! We are going to wake Tali, then neither of us will sleep tonig-,” he doesn’t give her the opportunity to finish her sentence as he frames her face between his hands and brings her down against him.  
He tugs her firmly down onto him, one hand finding solace in her curls, the other tickling patterns into the skin of her back. He feels like he can finally breathe.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Ziva take Tali trick or treating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ends NSFW.

Tony takes in the flickers and colors of the night’s festivities fondly, slightly concerned, but mostly proud of his daughter and her too-big halo and wings. She has a white-knuckle grip on her candy bucket, but she’s nodding as her Ima murmurs to her in Hebrew. Tony laughs when her halo slips forward as she looks down at the straps Ziva’s adjusting. Ziva looks up into her daughter’s eyes from her crouched position and pushes her halo back up. His heart melts a little when he hears a perfectly pronounced _chet_ come from Tali. Tony’s standing on the curb, letting Ziva have this moment- her first Halloween with her daughter.

Tali wasn’t quite sure what she thought of the spiders or witches or ghosts, and she held onto Tony as tightly as she could in the costume store. They weren’t going to take her out, but when she gasped and wriggled and pointed to an angel in the Hebrew story Ziva was reading to her and whispered, _“malach, Ima! Ani ohevet malachim!”,_ Ziva stole a glance at Tony and he nodded. Tony just smiled when Tali found the wings at the store and shouted, _“Ohevet, Abba! Bevakasha?”_ Her little hands squished his cheeks as she searched his eyes with her own.

Now, holding her jacket and Kelev, he can’t help but to get choked up watching as Tali knocks on the door. She’s looking back at her Ima for reassurance and he hears Ziva whisper, _“ata yachol la'asot zot!”_

Tali’s shaking with excitement by the time she’s running back to him, practically dragging her Ima behind her, “Look, Abba! Mamtakim! Did you see me?”

“Ken, sweet girl. You did so well! You ready to go to more houses and get all the candy?”

“Ken, Abba! I’m gonna get so much candy, Ima! Bo’i lenar!”

Tony laughs as he takes Ziva in, her hair wild and curly and whipping around her face as she turns and whispers, “You are putting her to bed tonight!”

Tali manages to fill her bucket before her feet start to drag and Ziva has to pick her up. She’s in and out of sleep on the walk home, her little head bobbing in time with her Ima’s footsteps. Her angel wing is poking Ziva in the nose, but she can’t bring herself to care; not with the sound of her daughter’s tiny snores, barely audible against her neck.

She doesn’t even wake up when Tony opens the squeaky dresser drawer to get out pajamas. They both break a sweat getting her limbs out of her costume and into her pajama sleeves, but she’s still snoring by the time she’s dressed. When Ziva moves to lay her down, Tali grips neck so hard that she tips forward.

“It’s okay, malach,” Ziva soothes as she smooths Tali’s curls. Tony catches her eyes and she knows they’re thinking the same thing.

Ziva hasn’t slept well in weeks; Tali’s had such a severe case of separation anxiety that she can barely go to the store for thirty minutes. She’s been rocking and singing her to sleep night after night, Tony at her feet without fail. He’s been there to wipe her exhausted tears, to feed her food when Tali wouldn’t let go long enough for her to feed herself.

When they’re sure she’s in such a deep sleep that she won’t budge if moved, Tony takes her into his own arms and pulls Ziva up from the rocking chair.

“I got her, babe. Go shower,” her chin quivers at his softness and at the way his palm holds her cheek.

Tony sinks back into the rocking chair, hoping to everything that Tali doesn’t wake up and realize Ima isn’t the one holding her. He thinks she’s content enough against his warmth. When he hears the shower turn on, he sighs in relief because Ziva’s barely been able to have a moment to herself and she doesn’t have it in her to stop. He knows that she feels guilty for the time she spent away from them. She feels like she needs to prove she’s a good enough mother, a good enough partner. She’s always been enough for him in every single way, and he’s good at reminding her through kisses and caresses and late-night babble.

He decides he’s going to risk moving Tali to her bed barely breathing as he stands. He scoops up Kelev and blanket on the way out and prays the jostling hasn’t woken her up. When he braces her head and lays her down, he has to stifle his laughter. There’s a string of drool escaping the corner of her mouth and the snores coming from her are loud enough to be mistaken for Ziva. With one last brush of his thumb against her forehead and tuck of her blanket, he all but tip toes out of her room.

When his knuckles rap gently against the door and she tells him to come in, he isn’t expecting the sight he’s met with. She’s trying to reach the towels in the cabinet, but even on her tip toes, she’s straining. He can tell she’s tired. He takes in the way her dark curls fall as she reaches. He feels guilty for staring instead of helping her, but he can’t help but to watch a droplet of water fall from the ends of her hair and down her back. She shifts back with a sigh and he takes in the way the moisture dips into those beautiful dimples. He takes in the way the muscles in her back ripple and flex; he knows he’s screwed when goosebumps erupt in a trail between her dimples and up her spine. She gasps as she feels his hand on her hip, smiling as he wraps her in the biggest towel he can find and pulls her back against his chest.

“I missed you in the shower.”

“Yeah? I’m sorry I missed it. I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you.”

He smiles at the shiver that runs through her as he presses his lips to her ear. She’s _there_ and he knows it.

“How will you do that?” Her accent is thick when she’s tired, but the smirk in her voice tells him she knows exactly how. He dries her off briskly before dropping the towel to the side.

She’s a little weak in the knees as his kisses press further and further down, so he guides her to rest her hands on either side of the sink. The breath she sucks in at the feeling of his lips trailing her spine shoots through him. He can fill the trimmer in her hips as his tongue laps at her left dimple, his right palm holding firm against that hip.

“Tony,” her voice is hot and heavy and he knows what she wants.

“What, Z?” He teases whispers as he trails back up her spine.

He swallows his words when he finally looks at her expression in the mirror; he feels bad because it’s been so long and she’s already so close. He decides this isn’t the time to tease and watches as her head tips back against his chest. Her chest is heaving with each breath and he groans as her abs twitch and pull.

He knows she’s going to kill him eighteen different ways with a paperclip if his hand doesn’t do what she needs it to do, _now_. One hand jerks away from the sink and curls around his bicep and the other guides his hand where she needs it. His eyes nearly cross when he feels how ready she is, and when her hips grind at the initial contact he has to brace her.

She groans, frustrated at his slow circles. He takes in the crease between her eyebrows and the gentle bounce of her breast as he guides her hips. When he makes a bold move and dips into her, he has to stifle her moans with his hand. She whimpers as he moves back up and her whimper turns into a whine as the pad of his middle finger circles her clit.

Her heart thuds hard against her chest as the tension between her hips tightens. He feels her hot against his hand and he can feel her pulse quicken as he presses a hard kiss into it, and at the same time, he presses a particular firm circle against her. He moves to brace her as he feels her hips stiffen and roll. He breath is quick and warm against his palm and she whimpers as he breathes encouragement into her ear.

She’s shaking as he turns her and hoists her into his arms. It quick and sudden and she wraps her arms around his neck, her trust never wavering. Her pulse is racing as he brushes curls from her eyes and carries her to their bed. He smiles as she grips his face and brings him forehead to forehead.

His smile starts to hurt when she whispers, “I love you.”


End file.
